Former high-level political strategist Tom Flanagan, who was criticized for his comments on child pornography, says he was led into a trap.

Tom Flanagan of the University of Calgary says the question that prompted his remarks about child pornography last Wednesday came out of left field and had nothing to do with the forum where he was speaking.

Tom Flanagan of the University of Calgary says in a guest newspaper column that the question that prompted his remarks last Wednesday came out of left field and had nothing to do with the forum where he was speaking.

He also says the event was being secretly recorded on a cellphone camera, the contents of which were uploaded to the Internet and led to Flanagan’s downfall.

Flanagan said at the forum in Lethbridge, Alta., that he questioned whether people viewing child pornography should be jailed for their “taste in pictures.”

By mid-afternoon Thursday, Flanagan met an onslaught of criticism with an apology. He said his words “were badly chosen.”

But the damage was done. The Prime Minister’s Office called his comments “repugnant and appalling.” The CBC’s Power and Politics dumped him, saying his comments crossed the line, impacting his credibility. Wildrose Party Leader Danielle Smith said there was no language strong enough to condemn his comments and that the party would have no role with Flanagan. He was her campaign manager in 2012. Smith was his star student.

“I absolutely condemn the sexual abuse of children, including the use of children to produce pornography,” Flanagan said Thursday in a statement.

Flanagan made similar remarks three years earlier to the University of Manitoba’s student newspaper.

Flanagan was a one-time strategist for Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives and for Alberta’s Wildrose party, and was a political pundit on CBC-TV — all have since denounced him.

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